Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana

Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana

It is a youth employment scheme launched on 25 September 2014 by Union Minsters Nitin Gadkari and Venkaiah Naidu on the occasion of the 98th birth anniversary of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya.

Strong demand for the economic opportunities among the poor, Social mobilization and the need to make rural poor desirable to both Indian and global employer have been the guiding principles of this scheme.

It aims to skill rural youth who are poor and provides them with jobs having regular monthly wages. It is one of the clusters of initiatives of the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India that seeks to promote rural livelihoods. It is a part of the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) — the Mission for poverty reduction called Aajeevika. The scheme will benefit more than 55 million poor rural youth who are ready to be skilled by providing sustainable employment.

Parties interested in running a DDU-GKY training program and assessment in partnership with the IT-ITeS Sector Skills Council NASSCOM are expected to produce a sanction letter from MoRD for the same.

Under this program, disbursements would be made through a digital voucher directly into the student’s bank account as part of the government’s skill development initiative.

This scheme derives importance from its potential to reduce poverty. It is also designed to be a major contributor to the Prime Minister’s ‘Make in India’ campaign.

FEATURES:

DDU-GKY enables poor and marginalized to access benefits in many ways. Socially disadvantaged groups (SC/ST 50%; Minority 15%; Women 33%) are being covered under this scheme on a mandatory basis. Incentives for job retention, career progression, foreign placements, post-placement support, and migration support and alumni network are its key features.

Being a part of a developing country, it becomes very important to do a job and make it big. Adding to the economic growth of the country is the responsibility of every citizen. Now if the job opportunities are very less compared to the population, highly skilled and qualified youth will grab all respectable and highly paid jobs. So guaranteed placement for at least 75% trained candidates and enhancing the capacity of implementation partners by nurturing new training service providers becomes a major attraction of this yojana.

Regional Focus

The mission of DDU GKY is to reduce poverty by enabling poor households to access gainful and sustainable employment through employment that provides regular wages.

AIM:

DDU-GKY has its origins in the Aajeevika Skills programme and the ‘Special Projects’ component of the Swarnjayanti Gram SwarozgarYojana (SGSY). The scheme focuses on catering to the occupational aspirations of rural youth and enhancing their skills for wage employment. For more details, please read the DDU-GKY Programme Guidelines.

It aims to target youth, under the age group of 15–35 years. A corpus of Rs 1,500 crore and is aimed at enhancing the employability of rural youth.

IMPLEMENTATION:

State Governments, Technical Support Agencies like the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRD & PR), and Project Implementing Agencies (PIAs).

IMPACT:

DDU-GKY is applicable to the entire country. The scheme is being implemented currently in 33 States/UTs across 610 districts partnering currently with over 202 PIAs covering more than 250 trades across 50+sectors.

Success is a three step process:

· AWARENESS

· KNOWLEDGE

· PLACEMENT

Skills and aptitude are secondary because the major problems among the rural poor are above three. This yojana has taken the entire responsibility to reach every single household and make them aware of their basic rights and opportunities. After proper training, the person so employed is supported for sustainability even after the placement. This produces skilled and independent youth for the country.

OBJECTIVES:

· Shift in emphasis — from training to career progression

· Enable poor and marginalized to access benefits from growth

· Ease the pain of migration when it is inevitable

· Proactive approach to building partnerships

· Monitoring of inputs and outputs, where main focus is on Placement i.e. output

· It enables states to take full ownership of DDU-GKYprojects it has been decided not to consider any more Multi-State Projects (MSP)

· State government as the main player — Single State Project (SSP) to Annual Action Plans (AAP)

· Special scheme in collaboration with Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DONER)for skilling projects specific to the needs, requirements and the special characteristics of States in the northeast.

· Enhancing the Capacity of Project Implementing Agencies (PIAs)

· Consent and State share is mandatory

SPECIAL ELEMENTS OF DDU-GKY:

1. The full social inclusion of the candidates is ensured by the mandatory coverage of socially disadvantaged group.

2. 50% of the funds would be earmarked for SCs and STs, 15% to minorities and 3% for persons with disabilities. One-third of the persons covered should be women.

3. The regional inclusion of candidates is enabled through a special subscheme for the youth of Jammu and Kashmir called Himayat, which MoRD operates under ASDP for state which covers urban as well as rural youth and Below Poverty line (BPL) as well as Above Poverty line (APL) persons.

4. Roshni- a special scheme for tribal areas and critical Left Wing Extremist (LWE) affected districts with separate guidelines has been launched that takes into account the peculiar situation in selected critical LWE Particularly it provides training for different time periods.

Implementation Model

DDU-GKY follows a 3-tier implementation model. The DDU-GKY National Unit at MoRD functions as the policy-making, technical support, and facilitation agency. The DDU-GKY State Missions provide implementation support, and the Project Implementing Agencies (PIAs) implement the program through skilling and placement projects.

DDU-GKY FUNDS AND SUPPORT:

1. DDU-GKY provides funding support for placement linked skill development projects that address the market demand for funding support ranging from Rs. 25,696 to over Rs. 1 lakh per person, depending on the duration of the project and whether the project is residential or non-residential.

3. Funding components include support for training costs, boarding and lodging (residential programs), transportation costs, post-placement support costs, career progression and retention support costs.

Training Requirements

· DDU-GKY funds a variety of skill training programs covering over 250 trades across a range of sectors such as Retail, Hospitality, Health, Construction, Automotive, Leather, Electrical, Plumbing, Gems, and Jewelry, to name a few. The only mandate is that skill training should be demand based and lead to placement of at least 75% of the trainees.

· The trade specific skills are required to follow the curriculum and norms prescribed by specified national agencies: the National Council for Vocational Training and Sector Skills Councils.

· In addition to the trade specific skills, training must be provided in employability and soft skills, functional English and functional Informational technology literacy so that the training can build cross-cutting essential skills.

IMPORTANCE:

This is a major step to eradicate unemployment and poverty. India is a developing country and so is the youth employment a major factor for its growth. This scheme takes into consideration every single factor and makes an effective plan to reach out the rural poor youth. Guidance is all they need because the lack of resources has made it difficult for them to even think of a well-paid job. Training them and providing suitable placement along with financial support in the early stages of the job is a big step towards economic and social growth.